Pollination Security for Fruit and Vegetable Crops in the Northeast (collaborative project with Frank Drummond, Aaron Hoshide, Sam Hanes, Alison Dibble at UMaine)

Duration

January 2012 - December 2016

Narrative

Pollinator-dependent crops require a readily available source of pollinators. Although honey bees provide this service for a variety of crops, a diverse pollinator community is needed to ensure sustainability in this service. Native bee pollinators potentially contribute to this sustainability, however, knowledge about factors that affect their abundance and distributions is lacking. We are collaborating with a larger team of scientists to examine a variety of factors that potentially affect native pollinators of blueberries. Our focus is to understand relationships between native pollinators of wild blueberries and the landscape composition and arrangement around wild blueberry fields.

Research Products and Activities

Peer Reviewed Publications

• Groff, S.C., C.S. Loftin, F.A. Drummond, S. Bushmann, and B.McGill. 2016. Parameterization of the InVEST Crop Pollination Model to spatially predict abundance of wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Aiton) native bee pollinators in Maine, USA. Environmental Modeling and Software 79:1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2016.01.003 | Download  | 

Thesis

• Chapin, Shannon J. 2014. the application of spatial modeling tools to predict native bee abundance in Maine's lowbush blueberries. M.S. thesis, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, 55pp. | Download  | 

Presentations

• Chapin, S. C.Loftin, F. Drummond. 2012. Landscape Ecology of Native Bees of the Northeast. Poster presented at the Annual Coordinating Committee Meeting of the U.S. Geological Survey, Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. Orono, Maine. March 20.
• Chapin, S. C. Loftin, F. Drummond. 2012. GIS and Blueberry Pollination. Presentation at the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension - Wild Blueberry Field Day. Jonesboro, Maine. July 18.
• Chapin, S., C.S. Loftin, and F. Drummond. 2013. Assessing the Effect of Landscape Pattern and Arrangement on Native Bee Abundance in Maine’s Blueberry Fields, Poster Presentation at the Northeast Natural History Conference, April 13-15, Springfield, MA.
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